Democrats seized the governor's office of four industrial battleground states on Tuesday and held onto California, providing some of the few encouraging signs in an otherwise bleak election season for the party.

But the Democrats won fewer governors' races than they had been predicting, and the best they could hope for was a 50-50 split among governorships nationwide.

The governors' races in Alabama and Oregon had not been decided by late yesterday. Both candidates in Alabama were claiming victory, with a dispute over 6,000 ballots most likely headed to the courts. Oregon had not completed counting thousands of paper ballots.

The two brightest spots on the electoral map for Democrats were California and Illinois, where the party dominated voting from the top to bottom of state ballots.

Rod R. Blagojevich, a member of Congress from Chicago's North Side, captured a governor's office that had been in Republican hands since 1977. The Democrats also gained control of both houses of the Illinois Legislature for the first time in a decade and won every statewide office but one.

In California, Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, won by 47 percent to 42 percent over a weak Republican challenger, Bill Simon Jr., whom he outspent nearly 3 to 1. Mr. Davis's relatively narrow margin (pre-election polls showed him winning by at least 10 percentage points) was seen as a reflection of his unpopularity and of distaste among voters for both candidates. Minor party candidates split nearly 10 percent of the vote. California Democrats won all eight statewide offices, but many of the races were closer than expected and state Republican officials said they believed the solid Democratic dominance was showing fissures.

Over all, Democrats appeared to pick up four governor's offices, even as Republicans regained control of the Senate and solidified their control of the House.

''The governors' races were in fact the bright spot,'' said Gov. Parris N. Glendening of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Governors' Association. ''Not as bright as we would have liked to have, to be sure. There were some surprises, including some negative surprises, like Georgia, but if you look at what happened in the Senate and the House, Democratic candidates for governor did exceptionally well.''

One of the surprises came in Mr. Glendening's Maryland, long a Democratic stronghold, where a Republican, Representative Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., beat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in the governor's race. Mr. Glendening attributed Ms. Townsend's loss to internal squabbles and an inability to mobilize core Democratic voters.

Still, he took comfort in victories in governors' races in the swing states of Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, saying they put the party in good shape heading into the 2004 presidential race. Mr. Glendening calculated that states that would be under Democratic governors would control 294 electoral votes.

Analysts noted that the big industrial states won by Democratic candidates had Republican governors in 2000 and still voted for Al Gore over George W. Bush. Even with those losses, Republicans still held the governor's office in three of the four most populous states: New York, Florida and Texas.

''We would have loved to have held some of those large industrial states, but that's tough territory,'' said Gov. John G. Rowland of Connecticut, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. ''A midterm election under a first-term president is always difficult, and yet you saw in these governors' races a performance by our party that exceeded historical expectations by a significant amount.''

Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California, said that several of the Democratic victories could be at least partly attributable to voters' weariness with longtime single-party control of the governor's office.

This phenomenon cut both ways. Linda Lingle, a Republican, took the governorship of Hawaii after 40 years of Democratic control. Wisconsin got a Democratic governor, Attorney General Jim Doyle, for the first time in 16 years. Senator Frank H. Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, won the governorship after 20 years of Democratic control. Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic attorney general of Michigan, took the governor's office after 12 years under the Republican John Engler. And Georgia elected a Republican governor, Sonny Perdue, for the first time since Reconstruction.

''People having one party in governorship is like holding on to a piece of cheese for too long,'' Mr. Pitney said. ''After a certain time, you want a change.''

The Republican success in Congressional races around the country extended to state legislatures, where the party picked up approximately 280 seats, moving it close to holding half of the 7,382 total seats.

Republicans now control the Texas Legislature and the governor's office for the first time since 1870 and the Missouri House for the first time since 1955. They also gained control of the upper chambers in Arizona, Colorado and Wisconsin.

In all, Republicans now control 21 legislatures, up from 17; Democrats hold 17, a loss of one. The others are split or have not yet been decided.

Among the most surprising contests for governor were several in the Southwest, where Democrats won in New Mexico, Oklahoma and apparently in Arizona. Bill Richardson, a former congressman and energy secretary, easily beat State Representative John Sanchez in New Mexico. The Arizona race was much tighter, with the Democratic attorney general, Janet Napolitano, leading former Representative Matt Salmon.

Republicans were perhaps most disappointed by Steve Largent's loss in Oklahoma. Mr. Largent, a former National Football League star receiver and member of Congress, lost to State Senator Brad Henry by a handful of votes in a race that most likely turned on, of all things, cockfighting. Mr. Largent supported a ballot measure to outlaw the practice, which he called ''barbaric.'' Cockfighting enthusiasts turned out heavily to vote for Mr. Henry and an independent candidate, Gary Richardson, who received 14 percent of the vote. Mr. Largent lost by 6,300 votes out of a million cast.

Correction: November 10, 2002, Sunday A map on Thursday updating results of the governors' races repeated the omissions of Georgia, Maryland and South Carolina and omitted two states where governorships changed to Republican hands. They are Hawaii and Minnesota.